Abraham

Abraham — first called Abram — stands at the head of the patriarchal narratives as the man whom Yahweh chose, called out of Mesopotamia, and bound to himself by an everlasting covenant. The UPDV traces him from his birth in the line of Terah (Gen 11:27) through his death in a good old age (Gen 25:8), and the rest of Scripture keeps returning to him as the father of the faithful, the friend of God, and the patriarch through whose seed the nations are blessed. The portrait that emerges is unified: Yahweh speaks, Abraham believes, and the promise carries forward.

Origins and the Call

Abraham's family belongs to the line of Terah, who "begot Abram, Nahor, and Haran" (Gen 11:27). Terah took Abram, Sarai, and Lot out of Ur of the Chaldees toward Canaan, and the company stopped at Haran (Gen 11:31). Nehemiah remembers the same moment liturgically: "You are Yahweh the God, who chose Abram, and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham" (Neh 9:7). Isaiah recalls the call as a call to one man: "for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many" (Isa 51:2).

The call itself is the hinge of the Abraham narrative. Yahweh said to Abram, "Get out of your country, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you" (Gen 12:1), and the command is followed by the threefold promise: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you will be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse: and in you will all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen 12:2-3). Abraham obeys: "So Abram went, as Yahweh had spoken to him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran" (Gen 12:4). Hebrews reads this departure as the paradigm of faith: "By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he went" (Heb 11:8).

Sojourner in Canaan

Abraham's life in the land is the life of a sojourner, not an owner. He goes up out of Egypt with his wife and Lot (Gen 13:1), settles in Canaan while Lot drifts toward Sodom (Gen 13:12), and yields the choice of pasture to his nephew with the unselfish offer, "Isn't the whole land before you? Separate yourself, I pray you, from me. If [you will take] the left hand, then I will go to the right. Or if [you take] the right hand, then I will go to the left" (Gen 13:9).

When Lot is taken captive, Abram acts decisively: "And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he mobilized his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued as far as Dan" (Gen 14:14). Returning from the slaughter of the kings he is met by Melchizedek of Salem, who "brought forth bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High" (Gen 14:18) and blessed him; and "blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tenth of all" (Gen 14:20). Abram refuses any plunder from the king of Sodom: "I will not take a thread nor a sandal strap nor anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich" (Gen 14:23). Hebrews develops the Melchizedek encounter at length, observing that "Abraham, the patriarch, gave a tenth out of the chief spoils" (Heb 7:4) and that "without any dispute the less is blessed of the better" (Heb 7:7), so that even Levi, "through Abraham," paid tithes while still in the loins of his father (Heb 7:9-10).

The sojourner's faith is the explicit reading in Hebrews 11: "By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a [land] not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose craftsman and builder is God" (Heb 11:9-10).

The Covenant: Faith Reckoned, Land Granted, Name Changed

The covenantal acts cluster around three encounters. In Genesis 15 Yahweh comes to Abram in vision: "After these things the Speech of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, Don't be afraid, Abram: [my Speech is] your shield, [and] your exceedingly great reward" (Gen 15:1). Yahweh leads him out under the night sky — "Look now toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them: and he said to him, So will your seed be" — and the narrator records the verse the New Testament will not let go of: "And he believed in [the Speech of] Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness" (Gen 15:5-6). The covenant is then enacted between the pieces of the sacrifice: "when the sun went down, and it was dark, look, a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between these pieces. In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates" (Gen 15:17-18), with the warning that the seed will sojourn and be afflicted four hundred years before the fourth generation returns (Gen 15:13-16).

The Hagar episode interrupts the wait — "Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife" (Gen 16:3) — but Yahweh returns when Abram is ninety-nine: "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, [the Speech of] Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be perfect" (Gen 17:1). Here the name itself is reissued: "Neither will your name anymore be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham; for the father of a multitude of nations I have made you" (Gen 17:5). The covenant is everlasting and territorial — "I will establish my covenant between [my Speech] and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant" (Gen 17:7); "I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession" (Gen 17:8) — and it is sealed in flesh: "every male among you⁺ will be circumcised. And you⁺ will be circumcised in the flesh of your⁺ foreskin; and it will be a token of a covenant between [my Speech] and you⁺" (Gen 17:10-11). Sarai is renamed in the same encounter: "you will not call her name Sarai, but Sarah will be her name. And I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son of her ... she will be [a mother of] nations; kings of peoples will be of her" (Gen 17:15-16).

The third covenantal scene is the visitation at Mamre, where the announced son is dated: "I will certainly return to you when the season comes around; and, see, Sarah your wife will have a son" (Gen 18:10). The Psalter remembers the covenant as a pledge bound by oath — "[The covenant] which he made with Abraham, And his oath to Isaac" (Ps 105:9) — and Sirach summarizes the same trajectory: "Abraham, the father of a multitude of nations, Put no blemish on his honor; He kept the commandments of the Most High, And entered into a covenant with him; In his flesh he made a covenant with him, And in temptation he was found faithful. Wherefore, with an oath he swore to him, To bless nations in his seed; To multiply him as the dust of the earth, And to exalt his seed as the stars" (Sir 44:19-21).

Intercession for Sodom

Before the destruction of the Cities of the Plain Abraham steps into the role of intercessor. "And Abraham drew near, and said, Will you consume the righteous with the wicked?" (Gen 18:23). The argument is theological: "Far be that from you to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be that from you: will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen 18:25). He bargains downward — fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, ten — with the same self-effacement each time: "Seeing now that I have taken on myself to speak to the Lord, who am but dust and ashes" (Gen 18:27); "Oh don't let the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: perhaps ten will be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for the ten's sake" (Gen 18:32). The dialogue closes: "And Yahweh went his way, as soon as he had left off communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned to his place" (Gen 18:33).

Isaac, the Promised Son, and the Akedah

The promise is at last embodied: "And Sarah became pregnant, and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him" (Gen 21:2). Then the trial: "And it came to pass after these things, that [the Speech of] God did prove Abraham, and said to him, Abraham. And he said, Here I am" (Gen 22:1). The command leaves no room for evasion: "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, even Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah. And offer him there for a burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of" (Gen 22:2). At the altar the angel of Yahweh intervenes — "Don't lay your hand on the lad, neither do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you haven't withheld your son, your only son, from me" — a ram is provided in the thicket, and the place is named Yahweh-jireh, "On the mount of Yahweh it will be provided" (Gen 22:11-14). The oath that follows ratifies what was already promised: "[By my Speech] I have sworn, says Yahweh, because you have done this thing, and haven't withheld your son, your only son, that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your seed will possess the gate of his enemies. And in your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen 22:16-18).

The New Testament takes the Akedah as the proving of Abraham's faith. Hebrews: "By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac: and he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his only begotten; [even he] to whom it was said, In Isaac will your seed be called: accounting that God [is] able to raise up, even from the dead; from where he did also in a figure receive him back" (Heb 11:17-19). James reads it as the public demonstration of a faith already alive: "Wasn't Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?" (Jas 2:21), so that "the Scripture was fulfilled which says, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness; and he was called the friend of God" (Jas 2:23). 1 Maccabees joins the same chorus: "Was not Abraham found faithful in trial, And it was reckoned to him for righteousness?" (1 Macc 2:52).

Sarah's Death and Abraham's Last Years

Sarah dies in Hebron — "And Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (Gen 23:2) — and Abraham, "old, [and] well stricken in age," sends for a wife for Isaac: "And [the Speech of] Yahweh had blessed Abraham in all things" (Gen 24:1). Later "Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah" (Gen 25:1). The narrator closes the account in a single verse: "And Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, old and satisfied, and was gathered to his people" (Gen 25:8).

Abraham the Friend, Abraham the Father

The later canon refers back to Abraham in two complementary registers. He is Yahweh's intimate: "Did you not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it to the seed of Abraham your friend forever?" (2 Chr 20:7); "But you, Israel, my slave, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend" (Isa 41:8). And he is the father of the people: "O you⁺ seed of Abraham his slave, You⁺ sons of Jacob, his chosen ones" (Ps 105:6); "For he remembered his holy word, [And] Abraham his slave" (Ps 105:42); "Look to Abraham your⁺ father, and to Sarah who bore you⁺; for when he was but one I called him, and I blessed him, and made him many" (Isa 51:2).

In John 8 the title "father" is contested. Jesus' opponents claim, "We are Abraham's seed" (John 8:33), and again, "Our father is Abraham"; Jesus answers, "If you⁺ were Abraham's children, you⁺ would be doing the works of Abraham" (John 8:39). The discourse climbs to a higher claim: "Your⁺ father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad ... Truly, truly, I say to you⁺, Before Abraham was born, I am" (John 8:56,58).

Genealogy: Son of Abraham

Matthew opens his gospel by anchoring Jesus to the patriarch: "The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac; and Isaac begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers" (Matt 1:1-2). The summary at the end of the genealogy keeps the same anchor: "So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the Babylonian Exile were fourteen generations, and from the Babylonian Exile to the Christ were fourteen generations" (Matt 1:17).

Pauline Reading: Faith Reckoned for Righteousness

Paul makes Abraham's faith the load-bearing exhibit for his doctrine of justification. He cites Genesis 15:6 directly: "What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something of which to glory; but not toward God. For what does the Scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness" (Rom 4:1-3). The chronology of Genesis 15 and Genesis 17 is decisive for him: faith was reckoned before circumcision, "that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned to them also; and the father of circumcision to them who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had in uncircumcision" (Rom 4:11-12). The promise itself transcends Torah: "For not through the law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he should be heir of the world, but through the righteousness of faith" (Rom 4:13).

The same Genesis 17 wording — "A father of many nations I have made you" — anchors the description of Abraham's faith as faith against the visible facts: "Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, So will your seed be. And without being weakened in faith he considered his own body now as good as dead (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb; yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn't waver through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Therefore also it was reckoned to him for righteousness" (Rom 4:17-22).

Galatians retells the same logic for a Gentile audience. Paul again cites Genesis 15:6 — "Even as Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness" (Gal 3:6) — and draws the conclusion: "Know therefore that those who are of faith, the same are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the good news beforehand to Abraham, [saying,] In you will all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham" (Gal 3:7-9). The blessing is christologically focused: "Now to Abraham were the promises spoken, and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to your seed, which is Christ" (Gal 3:16); "that on the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal 3:14). The chapter closes with the clinching identification: "And if you⁺ are Christ's, then are you⁺ Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise" (Gal 3:29).